


Ramble in the roots

by campholmes



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Katya is fifty and trixie is thirty six, an exercise in the joys of loneliness, cabin women... Art women... Older women, enjoy yourselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-03-14 08:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13586217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campholmes/pseuds/campholmes
Summary: She keeps a weary eye out, through each of her shifts. She works herself up at night, sitting on the couch with both legs spread as far wide as they can get and a hand in a bag of grapes, to decide that she’ll ask Beatrice for her number the next time she slides through Katya’s line. Katya spends her spare time that she isn’t daydreaming or reading nature journals climbing around through the woods behind her cabin, crunching down on twigs and old leaves beneath the snow in her heavy boots.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This might be my favorite thing I have ever written. :) tumblr = @ourladybeatrice. Special thanks to my friends for supporting me through this one. Nothing explicit in this chapter but next chapter? Absolutely.
> 
> I've reached the point where I simply do not care about who may or may not know where I'm from, or where I spend my time. This fic is blatantly set somewhere up the North Shore of Minnesota, near Two Harbors. The grocery store Katya works at is heavily based on a Super One up there that I frequent. Title from Bon Iver's 'Minnesota, WI' ;)

The quilts that pile atop Katya’s mattress in the tiny cabin are faded with the sun that rises in the morning window, refracts off of the ice on the glass in the winter, sizzles away at the patchwork florals that make up the length and width of her bed. She has three on top of each other, flannel sheets below them. She’s slept on a bare mattress many a time, and she doesn’t care for how it feels against her skin. She’s too tired to allow for discomfort in bed, too old to refuse herself basic things that feel wonderful.

Her days are mostly short. She works at the grocery store full-time, sometimes she takes the night shift when one of her younger co-workers falls ill. Katya never falls ill. She hasn’t in years. She drinks the same coffee in the morning, pitch black, from one of her multitude of mugs in the wood cupboard above the stove, makes eggs from her distant neighbor’s chickens for a good breakfast. Sometimes, if she’s feeling hungrier, she’ll make toast with them. She rarely does, rarely uses the raspberry jam that she buys from the store once in a blue moon.

She doesn’t know how creaky one should feel at fifty. She doesn’t have many people to ask for reference: her co-workers range from fifteen to sixty-three, and none of them are near her age. She’s either an old woman or a cause for jealousy, nowhere to swim in between. She doesn’t mind it, is allowing herself to discover her own age without reference. She knows her body, where others can’t say that they do. She’s been smart all her life, an English degree under her belt for no reason beyond being able to say she had done it.

Her cabin on the side of the highway hasn’t changed in sixty years. Ten years before her birth, years before she knew it would be her own one day, long before her father cut the phone lines and ran off, ages before her mother died in her rocking chair, the one that Katya hastily threw out two days after her funeral.

The cabin was never a good size for three, anyways. Katya doesn’t miss them, revels in the silence, thoroughly enjoys her solitude. She likes to have loud sex on the living room couch, and she hates that she feels a reclamation of the place from her parents when she does so. It makes her feel childish, but she allows it, because it isn’t hurting her. 

Nearly every single day, when she gets off the morning shift, she parks in her dirt driveway and bundles up, in green wool hunting socks and Levi’s, a thick sweater and a warmer jacket, hair braided down her back and bangs pushed backwards into her hat, and she walks down to the water: the endless, freezing water that turns pebbles into circles and mercilessly kills boats, crumples them into driftwood, cradles seagulls at it’s shorelines. Katya puts her dry hands into the water, lets her pores close up tight, watches the blood leave her fingers and bloom to make her knuckles redder, watches her fingernails scrape the rocks.

Her parents had raised her to celebrate that they had enough money, that both of them had steady jobs, for the sole reason of not needing to farm. Her mother had cracked her knuckles and cackled at how she was able to let her bones age without much pain, that Katya could chop the wood and carry the groceries and climb the hills for her, that she didn’t need to do hard labor if Katya was willing and silly enough to do it for her. The woman would sit in her rocking chair and groan to the heavens about wanting a real daughter, cry over her fertility and her disappeared husband, as Katya would make her dinner dutifully, ignore her with increasing ability as she grew older and louder.

Katya hasn’t farmed, but she’s carried piles of firewood from the woods behind the cabin for her mother. She’s chopped up pine tree after pine tree, she’s hiked the stretch of woods all the way up to town and back thousands of times. Her body aches, her knees crack and throb and her back doesn’t appreciate her actions. She sits with two pillows at the table, one behind her back to cushion the wood against her spine and another underneath her bony ass that she can’t keep an ounce of fat on, no matter how hard she tries. Some mornings as she wakes with cramps, she wishes more than anything that a woman would come to rub her down, press knuckles into her back and the arches of her feet to soothe her aching muscles. She doesn’t let herself dwell on it, doesn’t allow herself more than five minutes of dreaming. It’s an ache that might always stay right between her ribs. She’s made peace with it.

She’s too solitary. The women she wants are too beautiful, too vibrant and much too intelligent to want to live in her house and entertain her boring lifestyle, too smart and funny to let all of that go to waste on an old woman like her. She can’t mind-- not so long as she works to accept herself, to love her aching body and her tiny home, her fireplace and the books she reads late into the night.

“Hello.” Katya looks up, her eyes are dry with the November air and her hands are flaking at the knuckles. She often forgets to bring lotion around with her, it’s hard when she doesn’t care to use a purse, only stuffs her wallet and phone in her back pocket and lugs a jug of water in her right hand.

The woman standing at her deserted register’s face is half-covered by a pink scarf. Katya can tell that she’s knit it herself, or that it was knitted for her, because it’s hardly done well. Her brown eyes are framed by thick brows, a light brown that complements her blonde curls that stick to the pink wool with static.

“Hi,” Katya replies. She’s thrust into cashier mode, it’s 11 pm and she gets off in half an hour. She’s bribed a twenty-year old kid to count her register for her once she’s done, since her back is aching and her mind is swirling just thinking of bedtime. “Did you find everything alright?”

Katya knows that her voice is creaking with dry autumn and early fifteen inches of snow, along with decades of smoking anything and everything that’s come her way. She leaves it to weed now, every once in a while. She has an oral fixation, chews on gum all through her shifts. Her manager is much too young to ask her to not.

The woman pulls her scarf down so that Katya is blessed with her entire face. She has rosy cheeks from the cold, long, bare eyelashes like nothing Katya has ever seen before, a cluster of freckles on her nose. Her lips are pink and plump, and Katya feels a familiar squeeze in her gut, her body begging her to do something about the woman, immediately. 

“I sure did,” she replies. She’s wearing a heavy, corduroy jacket, and the tan nude of it makes the red of her cheeks and big nose more prominent. Katya cannot help but grin at her, cannot help but answer her sweet smile with an even wider one. 

“Well I’m glad you did,” Katya says, as she scans each item, one by one, across the receiver. The woman watches her dry hands move her cereal, milk, and chocolate into the plastic bag, and the little smile doesn’t leave her face. Katya doesn’t look away from her eyes as she scans them, either.

“You’re good at that,” the woman giggles. Katya laughs, a big honk into the emptiness of the store, and she feels a blush creeping up her neck at it. But the woman keeps laughing, pulls out a tattered wallet from her deep pocket. Katya sure does appreciate a men’s coat on a feminine woman. 

“Guess I am,” Katya replies, once they’ve both calmed down. The woman is buying a pack of plain Hanes underwear, the kind that goes up all the way to the waist, covering the belly. High-waisted, Katya doesn’t allow herself to think much more about it. She’s exhausted, and the woman keeps watching her with her deep brown eyes.

“I’m the most excited about those. Just yesterday I got some new flannel pajamas, you know, the essentials,” the woman is looking at her with a twinkle in her eye, Katya must have given her some kind of reaction when her hands moved over the pack of underwear. She shifts on one foot, relieves the pressure on her back for a brief moment. She can feel herself grimace. “You alright?”

“Bad back, retail,” Katya supplies honestly. The woman nods understandingly, drops her hand down on the counter.

“I know it well. I work at the museum, you know, down the street. I mean. I own it, partially. It’s slow-going, but at least I get to sit down,” she laughs. Katya joins her- she’s easy to laugh with, and she can see in her eyes and job choice that she’s smart as a whip. Katya hopes to see her again, if only to chat at the register.

“Your total is forty-five ninety-eight,” Katya chomps around her gum. The woman wrestles her card out of the wallet and hands it to Katya. Her nails are painted a light pink, and her hands have recently been lotioned. Katya can smell it, some kind of lavender, floral. 

Katya reads her name on the card, can’t stop herself. She hands it back, gives Beatrice her biggest flirty smile, the one that’s worked on pretty woman after pretty woman, and Beatrice smiles back.

“Thank you, have a good night,” Katya says, the customer service instincts kicking in again. 

“I will, thanks to you, Katya,” Beatrice grins. Katya’s eyes boggle, her hand squeezes the side of the register, until she remembers the weight of her nametag on the pocket of her green polo shirt. She wishes one back to Beatrice, and watches her walk away with her bags, just knowing she has a fat ass from how her body sways.

 

Katya returns home in her truck twenty minutes later. She yawns as she pulls into the driveway, pulls her scarf tighter around her neck before opening the door to the cold. It hasn’t snowed since the week before, but the entire foot of white powder is still resting patiently on the ground, swirling sharp in the heavy winds. 

Beatrice, her brain supplies. She ignores it, but it doesn’t stop the name from becoming a background mantra as she unlocks the back door, drops to her yoga mat and spends a half hour stretching her back out. It’s the one thing that helps, beyond painkillers, days off, and saunas. Maybe she should get one installed, if only to pump some hot air back into her body in the cold months.

 

Katya reasonably expects to see Beatrice again, unless she’s a regular at the other store on the other end of town. Katya doubts it, people are fairly loyal to their usual spot and unwilling to drive out further for the other choice.

She keeps a weary eye out, through each of her shifts. She works herself up at night, sitting on the couch with both legs spread as far wide as they can get and a hand in a bag of grapes, to decide that she’ll ask Beatrice for her number the next time she slides through Katya’s line. Katya spends her spare time that she isn’t daydreaming or reading nature journals climbing around through the woods behind her cabin, crunching down on twigs and old leaves beneath the snow in her heavy boots.

She knocks against the trunks of pine trees, gathers logs and branches for firewood, and slides down the beaten, slippery trail to the lake, stomps at the edge of it in childish delight just to break the thin layer of ice covering the pebbles on the shore. She fills a jar with chunks of ice, pine needles and berries, decaying leaves, for no other reason than that she thinks it looks nice. She allows it to melt on the living room coffee table. Her deerskin mittens grow dirtier, and she shovels across the sidewalk up to the back door every time it snows.

Her cabin has low ceilings, heavy green curtains that slide across dingy blinds on the big window looking out to the front yard and highway beyond. The couch is worn, but she patches it with matching fabric and sews any holes with as much patience as she can muster, kneeling on aching knees and huffing in frustration when she pokes herself in the palm with a needle.

She plays Prince on repeat for two weeks, the record practically begging her to lay off, and she wiggles her hips a little bit, doesn’t wonder if Beatrice would like her record collection or whine at her to order newer ones off the internet.

And finally, on a near-whiteout Tuesday, Katya is sitting on a provided stool behind her register. The pre-storm rush has come and gone the day before, and the store has been deserted for three hours, as the storm’s intensity has grown. Katya is wearing a thick, hand-knit forest-green sweater gifted to her from one of her cousins in the eighties over her work shirt. It has two fraying holes at the elbows. Her hair is pulled back into a loose braid, and her bangs are too tangled to be socially acceptable.

The front doors slide open and Katya perks her head up from her novel, zeroes in on Beatrice’s big coat and bright red hat. Her lips pull upwards without her permission, and Beatrice laughs breathlessly. The noise rings throughout the entrance, and the doors bump shut to the howling wind outside.

“How on Earth did you make it out here in that?” Katya calls. Beatrice is still laughing, gathering up her thick hair in both hands and wringing the snow out of it. Her entire face is bright red, and she seems to have forgotten a scarf. Once she reaches Katya’s register, Katya can see that tiny snowflakes have made homes on her eyelashes and eyebrows.

“I don’t know, I needed coffee and I’ve been craving muffins for a week,” Beatrice pants. Katya assumes that she ran from her car to the front door. Katya doesn’t know if she wants to allow her to drive back in that storm alone- she doesn’t know what kind of car she has, if it’ll withstand any more wind or ice. “Hey- I never introduced myself. Trixie.”

She holds out her hand and Katya makes a mental shift to the nickname, takes the cold, wet mitten between her fingers and shakes. She gives Trixie an extra squeeze right before she lets go. Trixie giggles, and Katya lets her smirk grow longer across her face.

“And you know me,” Katya offers. Trixie nods. The redness in her face is lessening, but it stays persistently in her nose and the apples of her cheeks. “Happy to meet you again, Trixie.”

Trixie laughs at her faux formality, pulls both of her mittens off. Braden, the 15-year-old cashier that’s distinctly afraid of Katya, is eyeing them nervously. Trixie’s eyes are sparkling as Katya flicks her own over to him.

“I was wondering if you could help me find my items. The store is just so big!” Trixie widens her eyes, and the little wrinkles that appear there when she smiles smooth out. Trixie is standing with her hips jutted forward, and Katya wishes so badly for her to unbutton her coat so Katya could see what’s underneath. She’s wearing jeans, tucked into her high boots, and they’re wet from the snow.

“Can you hold down the fort up here?” Katya asks Braden. He nods shakily, and Katya grins in what she hopes is reassurance and not the mania of Trixie’s perfume and how strong it is, despite the heavy snow pelting her the entire way here. Trixie runs a hand through some of her curls, to untangle them while they’re still wet. Katya folds the top of the page over in her book, sets it down on her stool and stomps to the pastry section, Trixie on her heels.

Katya gestures vaguely at all of it, suggests to Trixie the options that she has. And once she’s turned around, Trixie has pulled her coat off and is holding it tight to her middle. She’s wearing high waisted jeans, the kind that only come out of your mother’s dresser, not new and stylish. She has a red sweater that matches her hat exactly tucked in, and Katya blinks three times to stop herself from staring at her waist and stomach, how they’re cut with the red and blue.

Katya wants to yank on the pom pom of her hat, the bright red, fluffy ball on top of her head. She could reach it, standing on her tiptoes, and she wants to pull down on it to zero in on Trixie’s lips, smash them against her own right in front of God and Braden. Katya can feel his eyes on them, and she props a hip against a shelf as Trixie scans her options.

“Muffins? Hmmmm, muffins,” Trixie is mumbling to herself. She picks up boxes and sets them down again, hefts them as if she’s weighing them for quality. “What would you recommend?”

She’s looking over at Katya with a smile and her cheeks are shiny with the melted snowflakes from her eyebrows. Katya’s chest explodes in mirth, she wheezes and grips the edge of the shelf with her dry fingers.

“Make them from scratch,” she states, and Trixie is giggling along with her, picking up a package that she’s seemed to have decided on.

“Aw,” Trixie finally replies, once her laughter has died down. “You should support your business! You make me sad.” She’s clearly swallowing down another laugh, but Katya can’t swallow hers. Something about being trapped until the blizzard dies down and Trixie appearing out of nowhere has whipped her up into an indistinguishable mood. She wants to lie down on the cool tile, press her fingers against it and lift her upper body.

“Well I’m getting these,” Trixie balances the plastic container atop her jacket in her arms, and Katya swipes it off, carries it for her. She thinks that Trixie’s blush grows, but can’t be sure. The store is bright as if it’s night outside, even though the sun hasn’t set. She silently leads Trixie to the coffee, beyond Braden’s line of sight. Katya’s mind flashes with an image of kneeling quickly, on the freezing floor with her bad knees, and eating Trixie out as fast as possible against shelves of soup cans. 

“Here,” she says instead. Trixie smiles and her cheeks line. She spends a lot of her time amused, Katya can tell. Katya gestures at the coffee, holds out her arm to encourage her to wander in first.

“Oh, a gentleman,” Trixie says. Her voice is hushed, and Katya’s blush flares. Trixie isn’t looking at her, and Katya places her chin in her hand, props her elbow on her forearm crossed over her stomach. She taps her fingers against her cheek, Trixie’s comment whirling around in her head. Katya feels like she’s burning alive from head to toe, and she swallows hard to prevent herself from coughing.

Once Trixie has stopped bending over and scanning all of the available types of coffee, her bag placed in Katya’s arms, and Katya has stopped staring at her ass, Trixie hums to herself again, taps her nose in consideration.

Her nose is a little off-center, wide and long. Katya is enchanted, and when Trixie purses her lips and giggles behind them it scrunches up, her eyes along with it.

“I think I want to look at socks. Do you have those?” She asks. Her entire face is glowing mischievously. Katya rolls her eyes, both of them knowing that Trixie was in the clothing section just two weeks ago. Trixie pouts at Katya’s dismissal, and Katya takes her elbow gently, starts in the direction of the back of the store.

Katya doesn’t feel guilty at all, for leaving Braden up front by himself or for fooling around on the job. She doesn’t know Trixie, so she’s essentially helping a customer find their items, which is in the job description. Nobody will be coming in until a couple days past the storm, anyways.

“Oh, pink! Oh my god, Katya, these are perfect… I’m going to send in a compliment about you to your manager,” Trixie giggles. Katya really does roll her eyes, now, as Trixie pulls the pink socks off of the shelf, looking for size large. “I have big fucking feet, ya know. Gotta get the biggest size.”

“That must be why you waddle around, then,” Katya says. Their voices are carrying in the empty air. Trixie’s giggle does, too.

“Naw, that’s just my fat ass!” Trixie squeals, and Katya can’t stop her hand from gripping her upper arm. Her sweater is soft enough to make Katya’s heart ache. Katya’s face is twitching from laughter.

Katya can still hear the wind howling outside. The snow is being dumped from the sky onto the roof at a speed Katya is happy she doesn’t have to worry about until she needs to drive home. The store is big and looming, but she feels cozy. 

“I think you should take my phone number,” Trixie says. Her voice has dropped to a lower volume. Katya’s heart jumps for half a second, and she ignores it. “I think I like you.”

Trixie is closer to her than she was just seconds ago. Her hair has dried and her cheeks are tight with dried snow. Katya feels trapped against the shelf behind her, the boxes of tea looming over her head. She grins, taps Trixie’s hand to encourage her phone over.

Katya takes the big pink iPhone in hand, plugs her number in as Trixie watches. They are maybe six inches apart, and Trixie’s boot is squeaking rhythmically against the floor. She’s rocking back and forth as she waits, breathing onto Katya’s hands. One of her hands goes to Katya’s elbow, tugs on the unraveling wool. Katya hisses and pulls her arm away from her, just to make her laugh.

“Thank you,” Trixie whispers as Katya hands the phone back. Katya nods and leans forward without allowing herself to think about it, kisses Trixie’s cheek quickly. Trixie gasps, but grins and kisses Katya back, right beside her nose, on the soft part of her cheek beneath her eye. Katya can feel her eyelashes flutter against Trixie’s nose.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Call me, though.” Trixie nods as she stuffs the phone into the front pocket of her jeans.

Trixie stays until the snow has lessened at Katya’s insistence. She pouts about it a little, promising that she’ll be just fine, but Katya doesn’t even trust herself to find her way home safely in this snow. So Katya pulls up another stool at her register and Trixie crosses one leg over the other, reads along in Katya’s novel. Sometimes her pointer finger reaches up to tap a word or to glide along a line, and Katya’s eyes are immediately distracted and meandering up Trixie’s knuckles, all the way to where the fine hair of her wrist is visible.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No kisses. I want to really woo you,” she whispers. Trixie sticks her lower lip out in a mock pout, but it spreads into a shrieking laugh before Katya knows it. She slaps Katya’s shoulder playfully, grips around her collarbone to pull her close and kiss her cheek. It burns from where her lips land outwards, all the way down to the soles of Katya’s feet, in her wool socks and old brown boots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a commission for Sophie- thank you so much for requesting that I take some time to work on something I did not think I had time for before- you are an angel! I so appreciate you and your kind words. I hope that you enjoy this! <3 I hope that everyone else enjoys it too! Much love and relaxation 2 all ;)

“I’ve been living up here since I was born,” Katya starts. Trixie isn’t letting her even pull off her deerskin mittens before grilling her, the moment they’re seated across from each other at a rickety table in the dark restaurant. The candle pressed up against the wall warms the back of Katya’s right hand. Trixie is wearing a hand-knit sweater in a Scandinavian pattern, and a hat that matches. She’s curled her hair differently, and it looks beautiful. “You look beautiful.”

Trixie’s eyes widen and her lips curl into a smile at Katya’s words. She’s flushed from the drive over, but her blush grows, to Katya’s delight.

“Thank you. You do too,” Trixie nods at her. Katya laughs, a belly laugh that makes the table squeak, and pulls her own hat off, ruffles her tangled bangs with a hand. “I’m serious.”

“I’m just an old woman,” Katya wheezes, keeps both of her hands, spread fingers, on the rubbed-down surface of the table. “I tried my best for you.”

Trixie’s smile grows further to show her teeth. Katya watches, tugs on the thick gray braid hanging down over her shoulder, rubbing against the worn flannel she’s tossed on over a further worn denim shirt. She inches her busted up leather boots forward, just gently, until she feels them bump against Trixie’s chic, gray Sorrell's. Trixie crosses her arms, and squeezing herself between them. It causes the outline of her breasts to become visible beneath the wool. She blinks, sips at the water that the waiter left them.

“But. I will tell you about myself,” Katya continues. Trixie nods encouragingly, and Katya finds herself discussing the merits of an absent father, a cruel mother, being a butch kid, and her endless love for her own cabin with an almost total stranger that she’s spoken to five times before.

Trixie laughs and nods and widens her brown eyes seriously as Katya speaks, fills herself up on red wine and cuts her burger into fourths when it’s delivered to the table, eats each section slowly as she listens and adds in anecdotes when they’re needed. Sometime past Trixie’s second fourth and Katya’s third bite, Katya is desperate to stop for a moment. Trixie’s fancy curls have widened in the heat of the restaurant, and Katya’s eyes wander, watch the white blonde streaks that fly away from the mass of the rest of it to reflect the candlelight.

“And, your turn then,” Katya whispers. She’s a bit buzzed, the restaurant seems dimmer. 

“Sure thing,” Trixie grins. Katya watches the tiny sparkles in her blush glint in the light. Katya thinks that she’s wearing blue mascara, but she can’t tell in the lighting. “I’m from down south about an hour. I have three younger sisters, much younger, though. The youngest only just graduated high school.”

Katya hums in acknowledgment, nods as she watches Trixie’s right hand wave her fork in the air as she describes.

“I went to college for art history, did a couple of unpaid internships, and that’s how I ended up owning the museum. Tourist trap, some rusted anchors and all that. But I do love it.” Her eyes crinkle with her smile. Katya laughs, rests her hand on top of Trixie’s on the table. Trixie smiles wider, turns her hand so that her palm is facing up, runs her fingers across Katya’s inner wrist.

“It must be nice,” Katya sips her water and the waiter comes by to hand them the check. She nods in thanks, and he responds in kind. She knows that he’s from Ukraine, that he’s come over and been placed in this job, from conversations she’s pulled him into at the grocery store, bagging his items. She has a rapport, albeit mostly silent, with nearly everyone in town because of her job. The more homophobic citizens don’t bother coming through her line. She’s happy that they make it easy for her. “Must be good, owning the place at thirty-five. You’re young, they must despise you.”

Trixie laughs and grips the edge of the table tightly as she does it. The young mother of three, baby on her lap, glares over. Katya assumes that she wants the baby to continue peacefully sleeping. She winks at the woman, nods quickly and takes Trixie’s hand in hers, to calm her down.

“Thirty-six,” she corrects. “And it is,” she giggles, between breaths. “And they do. Or, they did. It was my great-uncle’s business before me and it needed a woman’s touch desperately… everything was horrendous and poorly planned. It’s quiet, gives me time to work on all of the paperwork and reservations in my spare time. So all that’s left to do when I get home is sit,” she giggles. Katya presses a finger into the tendons of her wrist, rubs down. Trixie links their fingers again, Katya can’t remember letting go. “They for sure hated when I redecorated. Change is evil, but I kept saying, it’s the only constant. Plus, I’ve done tons of programs with the schools around.”

Katya nods, smiles for her to go on when she stops for a breath. Her hair has still been growing outwards steadily from it’s original prim curls. Katya wonders how long it took her to tame it, if she’s spent too much time on Katya without enough payoff to please her. Trixie has been speaking, and she checks back in.

“I couldn’t live in the big city, you know, the noise is too much. College was exhausting. I need a pitch-black, silent room to sleep in.”

“I feel the same way,” Katya says. She twists her hand out of Trixie’s grip gently, takes the check between her fingers. She lifts her ass from the wood chair to wrestle her wallet out from her back pocket, pulls out the bills, enough for the meal and tip. Trixie watches her with a smirk. Katya can feel a blush rising up her neck, and she sees Trixie staring at it. She doesn’t know much where it’s coming from, but she allows it.

“Do you like that, paying?” Her eyes are mischievous, and Katya huffs a laugh. Her bangs fly upwards with her breath.

“Sure do.” Katya sets the necessary bills down. Trixie laughs loud enough for Katya to jump.

“Well it’s my turn next time.”

“Of course, I’m no moneybags.” Katya laughs, and Trixie joins her, cutting herself off to cough and drink the rest of her water. Katya watches her, still laughing quietly, as she pulls a water bottle from her bag and fills it with the ice from her glass. “Huh?”

“We can’t waste it!” Trixie says intensely. Katya’s brows lift, she hasn’t heard anything like this in a good while, but nods when Trixie gestures to her glass in askance. Trixie takes it and dumps everything that’s left in her water bottle, screws the cap back on and slides it back in her bag. “You can’t go around wasting water, Katya. I’m very serious about it.”

“All right. The lake is right there, you know,” Katya says, smirking and jerking her thumb to her right. “It’s huge, dear.”

Trixie scoffs, slaps Katya’s shoulder gently. Katya stands, pushes in her chair, and pulls Trixie in for a hug once she’s done the same. Trixie wraps her arms tight around Katya in her warm sweater. She takes time to push Katya’s collar around to fix it, pulls back and straightens it from the front. 

“Thank you for dinner,” she says. She’s smiling up at Katya, her eyes are bright and her cheeks are rosy. Katya kisses her on one of them, quick enough for Trixie to gasp gently, kiss Katya right below her cheekbone in response. “I want to do this again.”

“I do too. I’ll be calling you soon,” Katya says. She lets Trixie lead them out of the restaurant and to Katya’s truck, climbs in the passenger side. She cranks the engine and turns on the heat, knowing it’ll be a half hour before it really kicks in. Trixie will be home by then. 

Trixie keeps the radio off in contrast to earlier, when she was fiddling with the buttons, ending on public radio. Katya likes the silence, likes Trixie breathing beside her and likes the vibe that Trixie has been giving off all night long. She seems open to Katya, willing to communicate and meet her halfway. It’s different from Katya’s previous guarded girlfriends. Trixie’s eyes are bright once Katya’s pulled into a spot in front of her house.

She lives next to the museum in a little bungalow, brown brick and dark windows hidden behind the porch. Katya loves the group of pots filled with dead flowers, is thrilled at the thought of Trixie being too lazy to bother with them. Trixie leans across the seat as Katya is smirking at her and kisses her on the cheek again, this time just below her eye. She smells like garlic and fresh water. 

“Thank you, again,” she whispers, squeezes Katya’s hand tightly as she unbuckles. Katya nods, kisses Trixie right back at the corner of her mouth, and her stomach erupts into excitement as Trixie’s blush intensifies by a thousand. 

She watches Trixie let herself in and shut the door, waving goodbye frantically just to make Katya laugh.

 

For their second date, Katya takes Trixie into deep into the woods in the park near town. 

It sounds awfully unsafe and possibly with ulterior motives, but Trixie had brought the place up on their first date, and Katya had figured that it would be nice to go on a quiet walk, in the snowy woods that she grew up playing in. Trixie had seemed excited over the phone, and Katya had met her at the park building in the early morning.

Trixie is drinking whiskey from a thermos at eight am, and Katya is more than happy to be her sober hiking buddy. She had giggled when offered a sip, but had declined, refusing the heightened possibility of getting lost. Trixie seems so young, walking a touch faster down the beaten path, looking back at Katya with rosy cheeks.

Katya can’t not laugh when she trips on a protruding root, clutches at her metaphorical pearls as she regains her balance. And from then on, Katya keeps one arm wrapped through the crook of Trixie’s elbow, guiding her as they wander further into the woods.

Eventually Katya slows down to stop in a clearing that she knows she’s camped in in past years, despite the snow covering the area. Trixie sighs and sits on a brushed-off log, squatting with her thermos resting on the ground in front of her. She’s breathing ice, it’s become colder as their hike has continued, and Katya reaches to her to pat the top of her head, her cream wool hat. 

“Well now I’m damn tired,” Trixie breathes. Katya snorts, kneels down in her snowpants and braces her elbows on Trixie’s knees. Despite the cloudy day, the snow is bright white, and the shadow that Trixie’s face provides allows Katya’s vision to clear.

“We can sit here for a little,” Katya says. Trixie smiles, and Katya settles down on her knees further. It’s cold and uncomfortable on the frozen ground, but Katya likes to be inches away from Trixie’s flushed face. 

Trixie’s pupils are wide, gazing across Katya’s cheeks, from side to side. Katya watches her eyes flick down to her lips and rest there, and Katya hums softly.

“No kisses. I want to really woo you,” she whispers. Trixie sticks her lower lip out in a mock pout, but it spreads into a shrieking laugh before Katya knows it. She slaps Katya’s shoulder playfully, grips around her collarbone to pull her close and kiss her cheek. It burns from where her lips land outwards, all the way down to the soles of Katya’s feet, in her wool socks and old brown boots.

They walk back hand-in-hand, and then they get a little drunker, together, at Katya’s house. Trixie falls asleep on Katya’s couch, and Katya lets her rest peacefully until the late afternoon, when she’s sobered up. Katya walks her home, and Trixie kisses her cheek as the sweetest goodbye at the door.

 

“Well I think that this is very sweet,” Trixie says through her grin. Katya can hear her joy at being invited into Katya’s home, for their seventh date, the lucky number she used to carve with sticks into the dirt in the backyard, after rainstorms, when she was very young. 

“I’m glad.” Katya is at the ancient record player, slipping the Talking Heads on, as Trixie wanders around the living room, wool socks on creaky carpeted floor, touching the little cross-stitches that are hung on the wall and the trinkets on the bookshelf, gathering dust in front of books packed in tight. 

It’s only 4:30, but it’s dark as night. Katya keeps the music on quietly, and she pulls Trixie’s chair out at the table and sits her down, pushes it in beneath her. Trixie giggles at it, unfolds her napkin on her lap and looks right into Katya’s eyes across from the candle she’s lit between them. 

“Thank you for inviting me over,” she whispers. Katya smiles, takes her hand where she’s holding it out, beckoning, linking their fingers together. It’s like the hike from Monday morning, but their skin had been separated by wool gloves. Katya relishes in the rub of calluses and dry knuckles. 

Katya’s made spaghetti from scratch, garlic bread too, and she has a bottle of wine just for the occasion. Trixie exclaims over the meal, moans with a mouthful of bread, keeps Katya’s fingers between her own as she eats. Katya watches her, her rosy cheeks shiny behind the candle. 

“It’s so romantic.” Trixie says, after finishing her plate and downing her wine. Katya is nearly done, and Trixie keeps sliding her thumb across Katya’s knuckles again and again. It’s causing her thighs to ache, her back to twist against the pillow she’s propped on her chair. “Thank you.”

Katya laughs, swallows and brings Trixie’s hand up, kisses the back of it. 

“You don’t need to keep thanking me, I’m happy to. I’m wooing you,” Katya giggles. She can feel her eyes crinkling, her wrinkles etching her cheekbones. Trixie’s brown eyes flicker to them, and her smile widens. “I’m serious!”

“I know you are. And that’s why I’m thankful.” Trixie’s chair scrapes across the tile as she knocks knees with Katya. The music is winding down, the final song of the album is ending, and Katya reaches below the table to pat Trixie’s knee before she stands, scoops both of their plates up to soak them in the sink. 

When she reaches the table again Trixie is standing with her back to her, her sweater bunched up at the top of her ass. Katya wraps her arms tightly around her waist, squeezes her soft stomach and stuffs her nose into her cheek. She’s warm, and she takes a deep breath in once Katya is curled around her. 

Katya kisses her cheek quietly, releases her and blushes hard when she kisses Katya’s cheek in return. The little kisses are what drive Katya insane, how Trixie lifts her face to receive them and how they send sharp twinges through Katya’s stomach. Katya longs to kiss her full on the lips, and knowing that it will happen tonight is just about sending her over the edge.

“I just think that it’s crazy,” Katya says. Trixie looks behind her, eyebrows raised in question. Katya stuffs her nose into her hair, breathes deep to smell her shampoo. 

“What is?” Trixie finally asks. Katya wraps her arms around her waist again.

“That I’m dating again. That I met you.” Katya doesn’t want to make too much out of it. They’ve been dating for no more than two months, and Katya has gotten to know her well but not well enough to really say a word about how much she likes her. They’re taking it slow, something that Katya can appreciate, especially since their lives are so slow, anyways. 

Trixie laughs, though, and Katya revels in her soft stomach moving beneath her hands. She taps Katya’s shoulder to get her head out from her hair, and when Katya perks up to face her she kisses her slowly, opens her mouth and sighs from her nose. It’s relieving, causes Katya’s chest to bloom in heat and her hips to loosen the moment she feels Trixie’s pink chapstick against her lips.

Trixie kisses slowly. It’s not surprising, considering, but Katya is no less enchanted by it. Trixie is intense and focused, driven enough to take her art history degree to a real place and to keep herself afloat through scamming tourists from around the globe, framing maps of the lake for people to gawk at. Katya wants to take her down to the water, wants to hold both of her hands in her own and step out onto the ice, hear it crack and groan beneath them.

Katya breathes rhythmically through her nose as she kisses Trixie. She worries at her bottom lip, takes breaks between slow swipes of her tongue to kiss her chastely all around her mouth. The soft hair on her upper lip tickles Katya, and Trixie keeps humming quietly, almost impossible to hear.

They’re melting into each other, is what it feels like. Katya’s back is aching, but Trixie brings her hands to both shoulder blades and lifts a little, causing Katya’s spine to crack once. She laughs as Katya groans in relief, at the release of pressure.

Trixie pulls away with a line of drool connecting their mouths. She ignores it, allows it to separate on it’s own, and wipes her chin when it lands there. Katya doesn’t bother to wipe her own. 

“Can we go to bed?” Trixie asks. Her face is glowing in the dim light, her mouth hanging open, and Katya takes a deep breath, her deepest of the day, and brings two fingers to her mouth, licks them, and pinches the flame of the candle out. Trixie snorts, but her hands move greedily to Katya’s waist, tug at her belt without bothering to try and take it off. Katya hums, places both of her dry hands atop Trixie’s.

“Not yet, let’s sit for a minute,” Katya says. Trixie makes a tiny sound, too small and inconsequential for Katya to take it as disappointed or agreeing, but she leads Trixie to the couch anyways, settles her down half on her lap, both of their legs spread outwards to the other end.

Katya’s hands frame Trixie’s face, her thumbs grazing her earlobes and then coming to rest where her dimples appear. She watches her own tanned, wrinkled hands move across Trixie’s cheeks, and Trixie’s eyes stay locked on Katya’s face. 

“I really like you,” Katya whispers. It sounds foolish, and childish. Trixie giggles, and stands up, taking Katya’s hands in her own. 

“You’re crazy. Come to bed with me.” Katya rolls her eyes, unbuttons her shirt, and leaves the faded denim Polo on the couch. Trixie grips her waist, follows her to bed, and Katya sucks strawberry kisses across her chest and thighs until morning, when the sun rises on Katya’s faded quilts again.


End file.
